CITED4 and infarction: Previous studies have shown that exercise training—especially high-intensity exercise—not only improves post-infarction cardiac function but also upregulates TFs associated with cardiac development such as NKX2-5, GATA4, and CITED4 while simultaneously activating cardiac regeneration markers including c-Kit and Sca-1, indicating a transcriptional regulatory role for exercise in myocardial repair [100].